Tim was enjoined to see to the provisions, and to provide as good a
dinner as his best gastronomic skill and the contents of our portable
larder might afford, and I was put under the charge of Tom, who seemed,
for about an hour, disposed to do nothing but to lie dozing with a cigar
in his mouth, stretched upon the broad of his back, on a bank facing the
early sunshine just without the door; while our hosts were collecting
bait, preparing fishing tackle, and cleaning or repairing their huge
clumsy muskets. At length, when the drivers had been gone already for
considerably more than an hour, he got up and shook himself.
"Now, then, boys," he exclaimed, "we'll be a movin. You Joe Teachman,
what are you lazin there about, cuss you? You go with Mr. Forester and
Garry in the big boat, and pull as fast as you can put your oars to
water, till you git opposite the white-stone pint--and there lie still
as fishes! You may fish, though, if you will, Forester," he added,
turning to me, "and I do reckon the big yellow pearch will bite the
darndest, this cold morning, arter the sun gits fairly up--but soon as
ever you hear the hounds holler, or one of them chaps shoot, then look
you out right stret away for business! Cale, here, and I'll take the
small boat, and keep in sight of you; and so we can kiver all this eend
of the pond like, if the deer tries to cross hereaways.
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